My friend has had a stroke and it has left her almost completely blind. Cognitively she seems unaffected. We need some sort of gadget that she can have on a lanyard to call for someone if she has an emergency. Presumably this will use the cellphone network. It won't be any good if it will only work in and around the house. Ideas anyone? Brian?
Bill
This any use?
On 19:11 15 Dec 2018, Bill Wright snipped-for-privacy@f2s.com wrote in news:pv3jkt$bai$ snipped-for-privacy@gioia.aioe.org:
I'm sorry to hear that.
Really, an occupational therapist should visit your friend and recommend the council or NHS provides whatever sort of equipment they consider necessary and also to make other adaptations in the home such as handrails, etc. The council will sometimes fund a walk-in shower if climbing over the old bathtub is potentially dangerous.
Some councils have a department providing various gadgets (such as mobile phones, alarms, adapted tv remore controls, etc) for those living in their area and can be approached direct by residents but an OT's recommendation would help make a strong case.
That looks very promising. I see no problem with it.
Bill
I'll act on these suggestions. Thank you.
Bill
The ones I've known were linked to a landline with what was essentially a speaker phone. The calls were taken by a monitoring service who took action such as calling a relative/friend/neighbour, sending agent (at a cost), or calling ambulance. Some were LA staffed but latterly private sector. Usually involved key box (so check insurers happy with that). See e.g.
It was in the paper today that a 4yo called 999 by using his Mum's Siri when she collapsed - Alexa will do the same if broadband is available. The downside of course is that the phone has to be used to stop it being cut off. Local authorities usually do a response service for older people. The user presses a dongle on a lanyard or wrist strap which makes a base unit call home. The operator can then use the box to call out to see if the caller needs help. If they get no reply someone is sent out to investigate. It usually means a small outdoor key safe for access. As suggested a recommendation by an OT will get things moving.
I have one - my late father's - but it plugs into a landline. It's wireless, it works around the house, two lanyard type things, calls up to three numbers.
I've tried to sell it on eBay, but no takers for £20, so if you want it you can have it for postage. Let me know here.
Cheers
Well, I believe Cobolt did something like this, but do not know how usable it is. The services I know about do use cell phones but the issue is that you need to be near the host cellphone when you set it off I think.
The other route is a rented device which is not cheap. I would imagine the best people to ask would be the local councils Rehab team for sensory impairment. Every council is supposed to have them, but she may not be actually registered with them yet. If its really recent somebody really needs to get her benefits sorted out as well.
The services are a bit of a post code lottery around the country, sadly. Some are run on contract by charities, while other councils do it in house.
You might look also at Doro phones as they do have easy to use emergency button types, but the problem is people never have the phone on them or charged when they fall or whatever do they? Brian
As I say, the problem is often the charged state of the devices. I don't have anything like that but I guess I should One big issue recently is that I bought a new phone and the damn thing keeps dialling the emergency number by accident I have had to turn it off! Apple nice idea but a little too easy to trigger by accident! Brian
Thanks for that. I'll talk to her and I might come back to you. I should mention that her husband is still around but he's out of the house a lot. He still works, despite being eighty. Also, as a matter of interest, the lady in question was born with a heart defect. Her parents were told she would have a short life but she had pioneering heart surgery as a child (surgeon was Judson Tyndale Chesterman), has had several operations since, and is still around sixty years later.
Bill
I missed that - and my wife has a Doro! The emergency button works well-ish. Pressing it for a couple of seconds or three times quite quickly (depending how it is set) makes it sound a siren. At the same time it will sequentially call up to five numbers three times each as it were in a circle. If the call is answered it invites the recipient to press a digit to continue; if they do then the siren stops (if it hasn't stopped already) and the phone works in high level handsfree mode so the caller doesn't even have to open it up (clamshell phone.) If no digit is pressed because of a TAM or voicemail it will drop the call and go on to the next. The phone also sends a (user defined) text message to each of the numbers in the emergency memory.
The good bit? If the phone is not used much the battery lasts as long (or longer) than a Nokia 6310i - and we all remember them, don't we?
I have a neighbour who was kitted out (at her daughter's insistence) with an emergency pendant that links to a box that connects to her landline. It has a maximum range of about 100 yards, so it works anywhere in the house and garden, but is out of range if she goes to the shops. I am her emergency contact because I have a key to her house and can let myself in if necessary.
There was a false alarm earlier this year. She was pruning in her garden and managed to accidentally press her pendant. That is how I found out the modus operandi. Her pendant notified the box in the house which dialled the support centre. The support centre called back to her telephone to check whether it was a false alarm, only the lady was in the garden and didn't hear the phone ring. So then the support centre phoned me to say that she hadn't answered the phone on their call back, so would I please check. They told me that if there was a genuine problem, I was to press her pendant and that would give them another emergency call and then they would know that they had to call an ambulance. If I found that there wasn't a problem, I need do nothing and they would know by that inaction that it had been a false alarm.
I went over with the key and let myself in and found the back door wide open and saw her in the garden pruning, so I went out and told her what had happened, checked that it was accidental and that she was OK, then went back home.
Clearly, by being tied to a landline it doesn't meet the OP's original expectation. But if the assumption is made that someone going out is likely to be within sight of other people who could react to an emergency, so it is only in the privacy of one's home that emergency coverage is required, then the system does work provided there is a helpful neighbour who is prepared to be the local contact for the person with the pendant.
Jim
Thanks for that. Interesting.
Bill
Not directly an answer to Bill?s query, but something that those with an elderly relative might find helpful. I have a camera from Netamo installed in my elderly mother?s lounge, with her permission. It connects via WiFi to her home Broadband. So what you may say. The clever bit is the camera performs stunningly accurate face recognition. When she gets up on the morning and enters the lounge I get an alert on my iPhone. This means I don?t have to proactively monitor the camera. I can get a live video feed on my phone, useful for when she has pushed all the wrong phone buttons by mistake and given me a silent phone call. Means I don?t have to rush round there. It also recognises when the daily help turns up, so I know that she has been. Best thing is there is no ongoing subscription. She also has an emergency call button on a neck pendant, that summons help from a box connected to her phone and then to Age UK (as described by another poster). This has literally (correct use of literally, not the modern use) saved her life on one occasion. For Bill?s friend, I?d recommended this as a priority over a mobile phone based system. Not to say you can have the mobile one as well, but the majority of life threatening incidents happen in the home, and you don?t have to mess around charging batteries.
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Yes. My apologies to Bill et al for not declaring I was not meeting the remit ("It won't be any good if it will only work in and around the house"). I just wanted to point out what was a very easy to use, lightweight system for use around the home (simple and light compared with mobile phones, personal locator beacons and the like).
You probably need two devices. The common fixed line Telecare pendant/wristband sort which call a call centre who listen to the phone microphone and try to get a response from the caller. If they fail they can call the emergency services. Usually work well around the house and garden but no more. Pendant battery life is usually 2 to 7 years and the system is checked monthly and low battery detected then.
The GSM variety are rather limited but the only option for away from home. Although they have world wide coverage they rely upon the user always taking the phone or fairly bulky call pendant with them (which rarely happens) plus they call a fixed list of recipients and rely upon one of them having a phone with them and answering. Some will send a Google maps link by SMS which will show the location. None will call the emergency services directly as 999 operators cannot respond to text messages or make use of Google maps. Mindme does have a call centre but knowing the alarm has been activated in a busy high street and you can't speak to the user isn't very useful by itself.
They are mainly used to locate people who have wondered off or to keep an eye on their location.
Around the house and gardens the Telecare system is significantly better than GSM based solutions.
Typically these devices have a battery life between charges of 24 to
48 hours.For wide coverage GSM is the only option but it is significantly less useful than Telecare around the house. Ideally you would have Telecare for home and garden use and GSM for away from home use.
Check with your local Council: ours had a service which we subscribed to for my father.
A box was installed in his house which connected to the BT landline master socket and which would automatically call a 24/7 call centre to alert them if he pressed a big red button*, or a button on a cord round his neck, or if a sensor under his mattress didn't register he had gone to bed.
*He eventually discovered that if he pressed the big red button he could hold a very pleasant conversation with a (usually) female voice at any time of day or night! Not that we were neglecting him, more he preferred her voice to ours!
Bugger, I just noticed the need to work away from the house! Sorry, this only worked in the house and in the garden.
The same thing happened to us, the main difference was that we got the call at 2am! It seems father-in-law took our instruction to wear the pendant at all times quite seriously, and even wore it in bed. Unfortunately, he must have rolled over in his sleep and pressed the button, which set the alarm off. Being upstairs, no doubt with his bedroom door closed, he didn't hear the phone ring and the support centre operator ask if anything was wrong. So we had to drive over and check what was going on. He was most surprised (and somewhat annoyed to be woken up), when we arrived to ask if he was ok.
Well, at least we knew the system worked outside of a test.
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